


The Red Queen's Race

by osprey_archer



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 05:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was only that if Sybil were ill there would have been an endless stream of cups of tea, and Doctor Clarkson called, and Edith endlessly dropping by – Edith was always excellent when one was ill, really. It was a pity they hadn’t an invalid great aunt who could appreciate her properly. </i>
</p>
<p>Gwen has a cold, and Sybil brings her tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Red Queen's Race

Sybil’s heart pounded as she mounted the bare back staircase, teacup and saucer carefully balanced in her hand. She felt deliciously criminal, like she were a little girl again playing hide and seek. They weren’t supposed to hide in the servants’ quarters – “They deserve their privacy,” Mama always said – but of course sometimes they did. 

Not that the servants really had privacy, Sybil thought, eyeing the tea: it seemed dreadfully close to slopping. No one in a big house like Downton ever really had privacy, but they all pretended and that was a good deal better than nothing. 

The staircase trembled with footsteps. Sybil looked up sharply. But a door slammed below and the stairs were quiet again. There oughtn’t be anyone this far up: all the servants had changed for the afternoon hours ago, and they had a dinner party to get ready for. 

Sybil took the steps a bit faster. Tea splashed out of the cup, spattering on the saucer and Sybil’s hand. “Ow!” she muttered, and almost dropped the cup. 

It was silly, really, hurrying; she wasn’t forbidden to go in the servants’ quarters now that she was nearly grown up. But she would be a little embarrassed, anyway, to get caught taking tea to Gwen. Which was silly, really; why should she be embarrassed to do a kindness for a sick friend? 

(That was why. Gwen was a servant, and Sybil was fond of her and trying to help her get a job, but that wasn’t the same as being friends.)

She stopped at the top of the stairs, gazing uncertainly down the long white hall. So many doors. She hadn’t the faintest idea which room was Gwen’s. 

And Gwen cleaned Sybil’s room every morning. 

A coughing fit began, halfway down the hall. Sybil strode down the hall, rapidly at first but slowing as she approached the doorway, and finally stopping short outside. She felt rather stupid, really. She ought not to be here. 

It was only that if Sybil were ill there would have been an endless stream of cups of tea, and Doctor Clarkson called, and Edith endlessly dropping by – Edith was always excellent when one was ill, really. It was a pity they hadn’t an invalid great aunt who could appreciate her properly. 

Whereas Gwen – Gwen was ill, and rather than endless tea and a doctor she would just lie alone all day, with no one to do any looking after at all. 

The coughing stopped. In the sudden silence Sybil heard the teacup trembling against its saucer in her hand, and Gwen must have heard it too, for she called, voice clogged, “Who is it?” 

“Sybil,” said Sybil, and eased open the door. Gwen looked up at her, eyes red-rimmed and nose scarlet, clashing badly with her long red braid. She looked confused. 

Sybil held up her teacup, as if that properly explained her presence. “I brought you tea,” she said. “Also biscuits; I couldn’t figure out how to carry them so I wrapped them in a clean handkerchief and put them in a pocket. I hope you don’t mind.” 

“No, not at all,” said Gwen; but she still looked quite taken aback, her eyes fastened on the Spode teacup as Sybil set it down on the little white table by Gwen’s bed. The gilded blue and white china looked foolishly fussy by the plain brass candlestick. 

“It’s my tea,” Sybil explained, “or it was, anyway; of course I haven’t drunk any of it. That’s why it’s in such a fancy cup. I suppose I should have asked them to make tea for you, but I didn’t want Mrs. Hughes to think I was suggesting you weren’t cared for properly, and anyway I wanted to bring it up myself. And I think it cheers one up to have pretty things about, don’t you?” she finished, and wished she’d brought a branch of apple blossom. For once chattering wasn’t working. She felt sillier and sillier as she talked. 

But Gwen looked at her and smiled, and said, “Yes”; and Sybil felt better at once. Gwen had a lovely smile, all happiness contained in it and the look like there was a lot more behind that she wasn’t showing, yet. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here,” Gwen added, but not like she really meant it. “I don’t want to make you ill.”

“Oh, but I shan’t be staying long,” Sybil said. “Only I have to stay long enough for you to finish the tea, I think, so I can take the cup back downstairs.” 

“Oh, we can take care of that,” Gwen said, and then looked at the fancy blue-and-gilt teacup, like a misplaced bit of an Italian Renaissance heaven in the plain neat room, and they both began to laugh. “It’d take a bit of explaining, I suppose, a Spode teacup in here,” said Gwen. 

“Yes; so I shall take it back,” said Sybil. She perched on Gwen’s flowered counterpane, then sprang up.

“The biscuits!” she said, and fetched them from her pocket. “Here. I hope you don’t mind…” She looked doubtfully at the shattered biscuits in the handkerchief.

“No, no; thank you for it,” Gwen said, taking the handkerchief. “Thank you,” she said again. “For all of it.”

And she sounded so really pleased that Sybil felt silly for thinking about turning back. A great divide there might be, but one could pass cups of tea across it, it seemed. 

“How did you know I was ill?” Gwen asked. 

“Oh! Branson told me,” Sybil said.

She glanced at Gwen hopefully; but Gwen didn’t blush at his name or look away or react at all, really. “Yes, he was in at breakfast when Mr. Carson sent me up,” she said, and dunked a bit of biscuit into her tea. 

Branson hadn’t seemed terribly distressed that she was ill, either. Oh, concerned of course, but not passionately so. And really, how silly was it to think Gwen and Branson would make a match, just because they were – horrible thought – Sybil’s favorite servants. 

“I think he gets lonely in his cottage,” Gwen mused, and Sybil’s hopes sparked again. 

They did have quite a bit in common, after all: that was why she liked them so. They both meant to rise in life. They wanted better than what they had, but they hadn’t let it make them bitter – unlike Edith, who wanted everything Mary had and let that wanting poison her. Gwen and Branson didn’t just want: they worked for what they wanted, even though it seemed a long time coming. 

_I need to find my work_ , Sybil thought: and the thought washed over her like cold water, as it did more and more often these days. The Season was coming, and it would be so easy to drown in it, as Mary had and especially Edith. All she had to do was stop and let it. 

Gwen sipped her tea. 

“How did you decide you wanted to be a secretary?” Sybil asked. They'd never discussed it: Sybil had simply heard it, as one hears these things, wending up from belowstairs like ivy pushing through stone.

From the look on Gwen’s face, she hadn’t much thought about the why of it either. “I saw an advertisement for the courses,” she said. “And it seemed the thing to do, I suppose.” 

Sybil mulled. “It just felt right?” she said. 

“Better than this, anyway,” said Gwen. And then she added, as if afraid she’d been rude, “Though likely an Earl’s daughter won’t bring me tea when I’m a secretary.” She set the teacup aside. Biscuit crumbs swirled in the bottom. 

Sybil took up the teacup, feeling a bit awkward again now that she had no reason to stay. “I do hope you feel better soon,” she said, lingering, and suddenly smiled, remembering the other thing that had prompted her to come see Gwen. “You’ve an interview next week! I got a letter in the post today. Next Saturday’s your half day, isn’t it? He said that will work.”

“Yes.” Gwen sighed. 

_We don’t think our dreams are bound to come true_ , Gwen had told her.

“We _will_ find you a job,” Sybil said. She took up the empty teacup. “We’ve worked so hard for it: it will work out in the end. I believe that.” 

She took the steps lightly, stealing down from the servant’s quarters and slipping, with some relief, out the hidden door into the back parlor again. Sunlight sliced across the red Turkey carpet. Everything sparkling, of course, even though they hardly ever used the room. Sybil read some of her more radical pamphlets here, when she didn’t want to be found. 

A suffrage pamphlet lay where she’d left it on the sofa. She took it up, and dropped it again, and leaned her head against the back of the sofa. She was tired of reading; and she had nothing else to do till it was time to dress for dinner. No: she had that letter to answer for Gwen. 

What would she do with herself once she’d found work for Gwen? 

The coldness rushed over her again, though the sofa in the sun was quite warm. Sybil shook off the coldness, and stood. She must keep moving. If she kept going, surely eventually she would move forward.


End file.
